Indoor Activities - Roseville,MI

Making tents out of blankets draped over the kitchen/dining room table will offer lots of fun. I also filled a dishtub or jellyroll pan with baking flour and let the kids drive their toy cars around in the flour, they loved it and had hours of fun and clean up was just a matter of vacuuming up the floor. I also had older, short pile carpet on the floors and let them draw with chalk, pictures, hop scotch games, etc. on the floor carpet and then I could just vacuum up the chalk marks when they were done. Have fun and hope spring arrives soon.

What about good old fashioned stuff like crayons, painting, playdoh. My boys like to have me help them make camps and have "picnics" in them. You can do basic baking with him.
How about going to indoor places like the play area in the mall (twelve oaks has one), or we love to go to the Henry Ford Museum where under 5s are free (we have a membership), or your local library (the Southfield one does storytime).

We bought one of those Little Tikes jumpies in the summer. Turns out is great for indoors in the winter too if you have the room. We put ours up in the basement and the kids play in it for hours. I love it, it comes with a great bag, so you can take it anywhere. It has come in handy to take to many houses to keep them busy too.

HI Melissa
We did a lot of dancing, tumbling/climbing over floor pillows, coloring, rolling around on the floor, watching muffins bake, looking out the window talking about what we see, and the weather. Playing in the tub. Lots and lots of dancing.
:) hope that helps, A. H

Hi Melissa,
When my son was younger we had one of those little kids plasic swing sets with attached slide. I would bring it in the rec room/basement for the winter. I also brought in his little plastic pool and put warm water in it. We would have pretend beach parties.
Another thing he loved was boxes. Give him a empty box and he occupy himself for a long time. I would go to the big box stores and get good ones like ones that held washing machines or TV's, one winter we had a refrigerator box in our living room for months because it was his fort. What a lovely piece of decor :) I didn't care though I knew his childhood was short lived and soon I would have my living room back. Now I miss those days.
I used to love playing music and dancing with him.
I also had a big bed spread we no longer used. I would lay it on the floor and let him play with play dough or paint or anything else messy. Those were the best of times.
Enjoy these young ages the are wonderful.
If you are looking to get out of the house a little bit our library in Brighton has a playgroup every Friday for kids this age. They have lots of toys, puppets, books and music playing. All in a child friendly room so you can relax and talk with the other moms while your child explores and it's free.
Enjoy the winter.
M.

Melissa,

We make forts out of kitchen chairs and blankets.

Something else I do sometimes is go to the grocery stores in the mornings when they are stocking the shelves and ask for some empty boxes, if you close them up they make great big huge blocks for stacking- kids can build walls or houses (with a blanket for a roof) if you don't mind the mess, and every week you can add a few more boxes. Cereal boxes could work good for this too.

Or get bigger boxes and let them play directly in the box itself.

Let them take a bath and put food coloring directly in the bath water. What I do is put about 5-10 drops of coloring into an empty shampoo bottle and then fill the rest of the way up with water. Let baby dump it out if he wants, once its diluted a little it will not stain them or the tub. Sometimes I do 2 different colors in 2 different bottles and dump each in opposite ends of the tub, then watch the colors mix in the middle right around the baby, very exciting!

We also love YOUTUBE we look up kids songs like chicka chicka boom boom, or schoolhouse rock songs, there was an old lady who swallowed a spider, or even just upbeat songs that get you moving, sometimes we just sit and watch them or sometimes we jump around and dance to them, depends on our mood that day. Just about anything you can think of is on there.

Sometimes instead of a regular lunch we will put a blanket on the living room floor and have a picnic. finger foods or snacks. It can be a nice change of pace.

I also have a small little tykes slide that I brought in and put in my basement, helps burn off a little extra energy sometimes.

Hope this gave you a few new ideas.

Music is big in our house. Playdoh, makers, crayons, finger paints, art projects with glitter and glue (...a little messy but works for my kids for 3 hours!). I also do storytime at the library twice a week and then stay alittle longer to read books or play with the train set. I bought some tub paint at target for less then $5 and that keeps them busy for awhile too. We also build fort and rocket ships from pillows and blankets. Making cards for people you know for the up coming year. Sock puppets are always fun, it takes time to make them and then play with them. I usually don't go anywhere, but a children's museum is always a nice treat. I also set up obstical courses for my kids to run around or through. They will help set it up sometimes too. We also do this for our trucks to run through. When they have a lot of energy, we play tag or hide and seek. Good luck with it! Oh and FYI my kids are 1 1/2 and 3 years old.